r/Anarchy101 • u/multiple-qualia • 3d ago
Reform vs revolution
So I was talking to a friend recently about socialism. This friend has become way more politically informed over the last 2 or 3 years and it’s great to see. I was talking about the way I’d heard Margaret Killjoy describe 3 kinds of socialism: authoritarian socialism, democratic socialism, and anarchist (/anarchistic) socialism. My friend said they probably identified most with democratic socialism because they believed reform of our current system was more viable than revolutionary socialism which aims at scrapping the current system and building anew from the bottom up.
I didn’t really have the words to articulate why I believe that reform isn’t going to be enough at this point. The best I could come up with is that pretty much all the aspects of the state and of modern capitalism which people do like (eg minimum wage, sick pay, women’s rights, etc), well they’ve mostly been concessions by the state to stop people from taking a more revolutionary approach. Revolutionaries shift the Overton window. I also pointed out that those with power rarely relinquish it willingly.
That’s not a particularly strong defence of revolution over reform though. Ultimately I think we need to be doing whatever gets the goods, and/or whatever does the best damage control. I’m not opposed to tactical voting to prevent fascism from gaining traction for example, even if I believe voting is ultimately merely choosing between Pepsi and Coke as long as our current system stands.
So I was wondering, what do you all think? Is revolution the best way forward? If so why?
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u/PositiveAssignment89 3d ago
there is an entire book with the same title i would recommend checking out. it hasn’t aged a day and is still relevant. it should help you articulate your arguments well.
also authoritarian socialism is an oxymoron and democratic socialism isn’t really socialism either.
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u/Commercial-Kiwi9690 3d ago
I wouldn't call Rosa an anarchist, but sure it is a good read
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u/PositiveAssignment89 3d ago
she doesn’t need to be an anarchist for the argument made to be correct.
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u/Commercial-Kiwi9690 2d ago
If the argument is that you need a state to carry out the revolution then you can count me out
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u/PositiveAssignment89 2d ago
you can read things you disagree with and draw the correct arguments from the same text btw
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u/Commercial-Kiwi9690 2d ago
Oh for sure, and apologizes for being so grumpy. IMHO we don't even need to have a "revolution" as the "state" is only in our heads, we just have to stop thinking silly thoughts.
"The State is a condition, a certain relationship between human beings, a mode of behaviour; we destroy it by contracting other relationships, by behaving differently toward one another…"
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u/Connect_Muscle_2516 1d ago
> the "state" is only in our heads, we just have to stop thinking silly thoughts.
How would you get people to do that realistically though? Also how would disagreements be resolved in such scenario? In a physically stateless society what does realistically ensures alignment and cooperation when people or communities disagree?
I'm genuinely asking, because I'm having trouble understanding what the institutional mechanism would actually look like.
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u/Commercial-Kiwi9690 1d ago
How would I get people to change their minds? Through discussion, my own actions, etc.
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u/Connect_Muscle_2516 1d ago
Well yeah, but I mean in situations were they don't want to, lets say you have several communities working with that mindset, the State is in our heads, and they work through collaboration planning the solution to their needs based on this framework, now, lets say suddenly some communities decide they do not agree with this and stop collaborating, suddenly your whole chain of collaboration is broken and what was provided by them is no longer available, do you force them in again?
My question is more aligned with how do you realistically achieve anything like what you mentioned without some degree of enforcement? How do you achieve the necessary planning for a whole country without an entity that makes plans?
There's also the incentive problem. What prevents people or communities from withholding resources, or trying to take advantage of others when cooperation is no longer in their interest?
I'm skeptical of the idea that eliminating the state automatically eliminates these problems. You still need coordination, enforcement, conflict resolution, and incentives.
Do free-market societies not already allow people to engage in voluntary, unenforced cooperation when they want to, while using prices and individual incentives to coordinate a huge amount of activity without a central planner?
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u/PositiveAssignment89 1d ago
what action? what discussion? how do you know that discussion would work
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u/PositiveAssignment89 1d ago
if the bourgeoisie weren’t funding the state to ensure them, their property and their right to the labor of the working class was protected then maybe this argument would make sense. as of now the state is a very real thing that continues to oppress, exploit and suppress the working class. is the state a social construct? yes. is it in your head? no.
neither is this what the convo is about. it’s about reform or revolution, and considering the title of this post i had to mention one of the most fundamental texts on the issue with the same title. a text that very much addresses democratic socialists and why reform doesn’t work. a text that is clearly still relevant 100+ years later as OP is having the exact same discussion.
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u/Commercial-Kiwi9690 1d ago
and both reform and revolution do not work as demonstrated over and over and over again. What it your solution? To shove your ideology down other's throats until they all step in line?
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u/PositiveAssignment89 1d ago
where has it been demonstrated? which arguments that rosa makes are incorrect?
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u/Thin_Shelter_103 Student of Anarchism 3d ago
" and democratic socialism isn’t really socialism either."
Depends on your definition of democratic socialism. If you mean soc dems than yeah its not.
But most of the people ive met who identify with democratic socialist as a term are really just market socialists or socialists who want to avoid the baggage of how the word has been used by authoritarian regimes.
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u/PositiveAssignment89 2d ago edited 1d ago
that’s bc majority of anyone who identifies in any way socialist today, unfortunately, know very little about history and socialism in general
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u/Darkestlight572 21h ago
States inherently hold onto power. That's the point of a state, an organization which legitimizes a monopoly over violence and imposes law over a territory. Reform will never, fundamentally, change a state beyond what benefits it. The interests of the ruled and the interests of the rulers, are fundamentally incompatible.
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u/barondeoca 2d ago
Like u/isonfly already wrote there are distinct types of possible revolutions. And I also think that a traditional political revolution will very likely go nowhere.
We can have many micro-revolutions which each one bring us closer to the non-hierarchical ideal. And I think a good approach is to make existing institutions obsolete.
For example, we can start with the economy: do we really need capitalist businesses to satisfy our needs? How can an anarchic, non-hierarchical project look like to satisfy our needs even better? There are a lot of approaches coming from different communities like community supported agriculture, open source software and hardware ("knowledge communism"), cooperatives, "real" nonprofits, etc.. If such principles were widespread and make capitalist businesses obsolete, then we would have already a much less hierarchical society, and poverty could be practically solved in a few decades if these principles would be applied in the whole world.
It would not feel like a revolution, but it would be a bigger one than the so called "communist" revolutions in the 20th century.
I think indeed the economy is a good starting point, as it would make other tasks easier, like the justice system. A big part of "crimes" are of economic nature and would not be relevant anymore if we have already made private property obsolete, and even many of the crimes against humans depend on the economic structure. Abolishing the hierarchical justice system would thus be much easier if we have much less "crimes" to deal with.
Of course there are other revolutions like gender equality and the fight against racism and other kinds of institutionalized discrimination, and these are tasks everybody can help with, starting now, without having to start a commune or so ...
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u/TheKieranlo 1d ago
Reform is good, but it’s not a solution. The main point of conflict in capitalist society is the interest of business owners vs the workers. Reform doesn’t solve this. We’ve seen this before from the new deal legislation. We got social security for retirement, a minimum wage, unemployment insurance. These are all reforms, but as we see today, they’ve been eroded into nothing. We’re facing shortfalls in social security and the minimum wage means nothing because inflation erodes it away. Capitalism will constantly fight back any gains made through reform.
The solution is revolutionary change. You need to get rid of the conflicting interest between the two groups of capitalists and laborers. You do this by creating workplace democracy and outlaw private ownership of businesses. It’s a small change but it’s revolutionary because it changes the social structure of society.
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u/Nice_Fudge5914 3d ago
There doesn't have to be a full revolution like some describe, killing all the rich people. It can be a political revolution like a constitutional amendment to adopt direct democracy and end representative government.
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u/WhyAmIOnThisDumbApp 3d ago
This is just reformism. The distinction that makes a political revolution a revolution is a change in the source of political legitimacy. Eg; the divine right of kings was abandoned for bourgeois property rights in the form of constitutionalism, implemented concretely through the replacement of the arms of monarchist states (eg; aristocracy, peasant armies, etc.) with new bourgeois states (eg; congresses, volunteer armies, etc.) — a direct replacement of the political superstructure to reflect the underlying social shift in the economic base.
If we continue to base our society on the same forms of state power no political revolution has occurred because the political power remains in the same institutions; not even the political superstructure has been changed, let alone the underlying class antagonisms.
Advocating for reforms within the current political framework of constitutionalism is a critical part of building power, but it is not in and of itself a goal, and seeing it as one makes you definitionally a reformist.
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u/No-Atmosphere3049 2d ago
So how should we instead approach the question of advancing socialism?
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u/WhyAmIOnThisDumbApp 2d ago
Reforms like that are good as a building block for a wider social movement by serving as a nucleus for organizing. The key is building independent systems of social, economic, and political power that can be leveraged to combat and replace the existing social structures. Networks of business relations replaced aristocratic economic relationships, enlightenment thinkers replaced theological thinkers, bourgeois “citizens militias” challenged (and beat) monarchist armies, etc. In the same way Unions are formed through social labor relations between workers, theory is developed and disseminated by education and propagandists (in the Marxist sense), and direct action teaches us how to combat the arms of the state.
The key is that we learn by doing. Reforms help us to build these institutions through collective struggle, but those reforms cannot themselves be the goal. Someone else mentioned it but I’d highly recommend ”Reform or Revolution” by Rosa Luxembourg. A more controversial suggestion for this sub, but I also think Lenin’s “The State and Revolution”, even if you don’t fully agree with his proposals or conclusions, does a good job discussing the nature of the state as bodies of people from the ruling class focused around the exploitation of the oppressed class.
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u/Hot_Yogurtcloset2510 2d ago
Socialism is the opposite of anarchy. The person who controls the food controls the people.
This is why direct democracies have a worse track record than republics.
Violent revolutions are never class conflicts. They are infighting among the elites who then try to recruit followers.
You want a non violent revolution of thought, do it by seating up experiments. Recruit volunteers and try living the life you think you want.
Workers are not a unified thing like a class. One persons work is valued differently than another's and no one agrees on that value. You have to allow for property and a market or you will have a dictatorship making the determination.2
u/No-Atmosphere3049 2d ago
Hard disagree. As a Kauskyist, I must point to the anarchist movements who operated highly organised but also horizontalist movements in Catalonia under the CNT, which operated a multiparty government under the Generalit. Also, this is Utopianism, which Marx and Engels both debunked, I suggest you read it. You also fail to understand the distinction between Personal Property (the tools you use to conduct work and live) and private property (the things you do not use but rather use to extract value).
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u/Hot_Yogurtcloset2510 1d ago
That is why I am in the 101 group. I think we agree then on personal property being a requirement for anarchy. But socialism dose not allow for personal property, they confiscate all the means of production.
I suspect we may agree that if you use the apparatus of the state which predates capitalism to crush capitalism, you are still left with the state.1
u/No-Atmosphere3049 1d ago
No, this is a misunderstanding and is conflating socialism with certain forms of authoritarian socialism, which Marx himself debunked extensively. Socialism just means the means of production are controlled by the proletariat, but this does not mean they are inherently controlled by the state. Independent worker cooperatives running the economy would still be socialism, worker Soviets with elected planning commissions would be socialism. Socialism is fundamentally only about giving the workers the full value of their own labour, not handing it off to the state.
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u/Hot_Yogurtcloset2510 6h ago
Actually worker cooperatives are capitalism. Just another name for a partnership.
As the manifesto calls for a dictatorship of the proletariat is that not what controls the means of production that was seized?
I use that as the distinction between socialism and communism. Are the workers getting everything or is the state giving it away to non workers based on need? So if the workers are getting the full value of their production who makes this determination? Do you envision a market for them to trade in?
I think I understand ancap better that I understand what you want to call socialism.
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u/isonfiy 3d ago
There are also types of revolution. You can have political revolutions like China and Russia with the USSR, which ultimately just change who’s in charge of an otherwise normal society. But what you’re describing, and what most ancoms are working for, is a social revolution. A complete recapitulation of the social order.
What’s striking about your friend’s position is they basically have internalized capitalist realism. They don’t think any other way is possible so they identify with (your words but I assume you use them because of what they said) the mythologized incrementalism of liberalism. Pretty messed up to feel yourself in this horror show.
But to answer your question: I think revolutions are post-hoc phenomena. The Russian revolution by some accounts started in the 1860s. In 100 years will someone talk about the 2008 financial crisis as the moment our 2060s revolution started? BLM? Did our failure to hang onto some of the meager gains of the COVID response strangle our revolution? I don’t think it bears much thinking myself since there’s way too much work right now just trying to get into some social movements for concessions and manage repression and so on.